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Islamic Socialism: A history fromleft to rightNADEEM F. PARACHA
Between the 1950s and early 1970s, a powerful ideology in the Muslim world
galvanised itself from the minds and fringes of modern Islamic intellectualism
and made its way into the mainstream political arena.
But this ideology did not have a single originator. Its roots can be found
amongst the works of Muslim thinkers and ideologues in South and East Asia,
Africa and in various Middle Eastern (Arab) countries.
Also, once it began being adopted by mainstream leaders and political outfits,
it was expressed through multiple names. But today, each one of these names
and terms are slotted under a single definitional umbrella: Islamic Socialism.
___________________________
Roots and Trees
Though one can struggle to pinpoint the exact starting point (or points) from
where the many ideas that became associated with Islamic Socialism
emerged, historians and intellectuals, Sami A. Hanna and Hanif Ramay who
specialised in critiquing and compiling a dialectic history of Islamic Socialism
are of the view that one of the very first expressions of Islamic Socialism
appeared in Russia in the late 19th and early 20th century.
A movement of Muslim farmers, peasants and petty-bourgeoisie in the
Russian state of Tatartan opposed the Russian monarchy but was brutally
crushed.
http://dawn.com/news/787645/islamic-socialism-a-history-from-left-to-righthttp://dawn.com/news/787645/islamic-socialism-a-history-from-left-to-righthttp://dawn.com/authors/774/nadeem-f-parachahttp://dawn.com/authors/774/nadeem-f-parachahttp://dawn.com/authors/774/nadeem-f-parachahttp://dawn.com/news/787645/islamic-socialism-a-history-from-left-to-righthttp://dawn.com/news/787645/islamic-socialism-a-history-from-left-to-right7/27/2019 Islamic Socialism
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In the early 2oth century, the movement went underground and began working
with communist, socialist and social democratic forces operating in Russia to
overthrow the monarchy.
The leaders of the Muslim movement, that became to be known as the Waisi
began explaining themselves as Islamic Socialists when a leftist revolution
broke out against the Russian monarchy in 1906.
During the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution that finally toppled and eliminated the
Russian monarchy and imposed communist rule in the country, the Waisi fell
in with the Bolsheviks and supported Russian revolutionary leader, Vladimir
Lenins widespread socialist program and policies.
However, after Lenins death in 1924, the Waisi began to assert that the
Muslim community and its socialism in Tatartan were a separate entity from
the Bolshevik communism.
The movement that had formed its own communes became a victim of Stalins
radical purges of the 1930s and was wiped out.
One is not quite sure how the Waisi defined their socialism in a country where
(after 1917) atheism had become the state-enforced creed. It was left to a
group of influential thinkers and ideologues in South Asia and the Middle East
to finally get down to giving a more coherent and doctrinal shape to Islamic
Socialism.
Islamic scholar, Ubaidullah Sindhi, who was born into a Sikh family (in Sialkot
but converted to Islam), was also an agitator against the British in India.
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Chased by the authorities during the First World War, Sindhi escaped to
Kabul, and from Kabul he traveled to Russia where he witnessed the unfolding
of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution.
He stayed in Russia till 1923 and spent most of his time discussing politics and
ideology with communist revolutionaries and studying socialism.
Impressed by the chants of economic equality and justice during the violent
revolution, Sindhi, who remained being a Deobandi Sunni Muslim, dismissed
communism/Marxisms emphasis on atheism.
From Russia Sindhi traveled to Turkey and it was from Istanbul that he began
to give shape to his ideas of Islamic Socialism through a series of writings
especially aimed at the Muslims of India.
He urged Muslims to evolve for themselves a religious basis to arrive at the
economic justice at which communism aims but which it cannot fully achieve.
The reason he gave for this was that though he saw both Islamic and
Communist economic philosophies similar regarding their emphasis on the fair
distribution of wealth, socialism if imposed with the help of a more theistic and
spiritual dimension would be more beneficial to the peasant and the working
classes than atheistic communism.
Ubaidullah Sindhi.
During the same period (1920s-30s), another (though lesser known) Islamicscholar in undivided India got smitten by the 1917 Russian revolution and
Marxism.
Hafiz Rahman Sihwarwl saw Islam and Marxism sharing five elements in
common: (1) prohibition of the accumulation of wealth in the hands of the
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privileged classes (2) organisation of the economic structure of the state to
ensure social welfare (3) equality of opportunity for all human beings (4)
priority of collective social interest over individual privilege and (5) prevention
of the permanentising of class structure through social revolution.
The motivations for many of these themes he drew from the Quran, which he
understood as seeking to create an economic order in which the rich pay
excessive, though voluntary taxes (Zakat) to minimise differences in living
standards.
In the areas that Sihwarwl saw Islam and communism diverge were Islams
sanction of private ownership within certain limits, and in its refusal to
recognise an absolutely classless basis of society.
He suggested that Islam, with its prohibition of the accumulation of wealth, is
able to control the class structure through equality of opportunity.
Basically, both Sindhi and Sihwarwl had stumbled upon an Islamic concept of
the social democratic welfare state.
Building upon the initial thoughts of Sindhi and Sihwarwl were perhaps South
Asias two most ardent and articulate supporters and theoreticians of Islamic
Socilaism: Ghulam Ahmed Parvez and Dr. Khalifa Abdul Hakim.
Parvez was a prominent Quranist, or an Islamic scholar who insisted that for
the Muslims to make progress in the modern world, Islamic thought and laws
should be entirely based on the modern interpretations of the Quran and on
the complete rejection of the hadith (sayings of the Prophet and his
companions based on hearsay and compiled over a 100 years after the
Prophets demise).
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After studying traditional Muslim texts, as well as Sufism, Parvez claimed that
almost all hadiths were fabrications by those who wanted Islam to seem like
an intolerant faith and by ancient Muslim kings who used these hadiths to give
divine legitimacy to their tyrannical rules.
Parvez also insisted that Muslims should spend more time studying the
modern sciences instead of wasting their energies on fighting out ancient
sectarian conflicts or ignoring the true egalitarian and enlightening spirit of the
Quran by indulging in multiple rituals handed down to them by ancient ulema,
clerics and compilers of the hadith.
Understandably, Parvez was right away attacked by conservative Islamic
scholars and political outfits.
But this didnt stop famous Muslim philosopher and poet, Muhammad Iqbal, to
befriend the young scholar and then introduce him to the future founder of
Pakistan, Muhammad Ali Jinnah.
Jinnah appointed Parvez to edit a magazine, Talu-e-Islam. It was set-up to
propagate the creation of a separate Muslim country and to also answer the
attacks that Jinnahs All India Muslim League had begun to face from
conservative Islamic parties and ulema who accused the League of being a
pseudo-Muslim organisation and Jinnah for being too westernised and lacking
correct Islamic behavior.
Apart from continuing to author books and commentaries on the Quran,
Parvez wrote a series of articles in Talu-e-Islam that propagated a more
socialistic view of the holy book.
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In a series of essays for the magazine he used verses from the Quran,
incidents from the faiths history and insights from the writings of Muhammad
Iqbal to claim:
The clergy and conservative ulema have hijacked Islam.
They are agents of the rich people and promoters of uncontrolled Capitalism.
Socialism best enforces Quranic dictums on property, justice and distribution
of wealth.
Islams main mission was the eradication of all injustices and cruelties fromsociety. It was a socio-economic movement, and the Prophet was a leader
seeking to put an end to the capitalist exploitation of the Quraysh merchants
and the corrupt bureaucracy of Byzantium and Persia.
According to the Quran, Muslims have three main responsibilities: seeing,
hearing and sensing through the agency of the mind. Consequently, real
knowledge is based on empirically verifiable observation, or through the role of
science.
Poverty is the punishment of God and deserved by those who ignore science.
In Muslim/Islamic societies, science, as well as agrarian reform should play
leading roles in developing an industrialised economy.
A socialist path is a correction of the medieval distortion of Islam through
Sharia.
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Parvez joined the government after the creation of Pakistan in 1947, but after
Jinnahs death in 1948, he was sidelined until he resigned from his post in
1956.
An issue of Talu-e-Islam featuring Muhammad Iqbal on the cover. Many essays
written by Ghulam Ahmed Parvez for the magazine included arguments for the
propagation of Islamic Socialism and fiery polemics against conservative ulema.
A 1935 illustration of Ghulam Ahmed Parvez.
Another scholar at the time who was using Iqbals writings on Islam and the
Quran to formulate Islamic Socialism in South Asia was Dr. Khalifa Abdul
Hakim.
A philosopher, author and a huge admirer of Muhammad Iqbal, Khalifa
ventured into the ideological territory of Islamic Socialism later than Ghulam
Parvez.
A keen student of Islam (especially Sufism), Khalifa, after getting his PhD from
the Heidelberg University in Germany, authored a number of books on Iqbals
philosophy, Islamic thought, Jallaluddin Rumi (Sufi poet and writer), and alsotranslated the Hindu holy book, the Bhagwat Gita, into Urdu.
It was after the creation of Pakistan that Khalifa began to seriously study
Marxism and what it meant to a young third world country like Pakistan.
In his 1951 books, Islam and Communism and Iqbal Aur Mullah, Khalifa saw
Islamic Socialism as harnessing the freedom of thought, action and enterprise
characteristic of Western democracies by creating opportunities for all.
Like most Islamic Socialists of his era, Khalifa too was basically explaining
Islamic Socialism to be a kind of spiritual and theistic concept of the social
democratic welfare state enacted in various Western countries.
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In Islam and Communism, Khalifa sees land as being the principle source of
economic wealth and thus the moral basis for agrarian reforms in Pakistan.
Dr. Khalifa.
Apart from Ghulam Ahmad Parvez, most other Islamic Socialist thinkers
discussed above, though thoroughly critiquing Marxism/Socialism on the basis
of Quranic teachings and listing similarities and differences between the two,
say little about exactly how much a role should a government and state play in
matters of faith in societies run on the ideology and economic system
prescribed by Islamic Socialism.
Parvez quite clearly suggests that an Islamic Socialist society run on the laws
and economics derived from rational interpretations of the Quran and modern
scientific thought would inherently become responsible, law-abiding,
egalitarian and enlightened and would not require the state to play the role of a
moral guide.
In other words, Islamic Socialist policies guarantee a progressive and non-
theocratic (if not entirely secular) Muslim majority state where the citizens are
enlightened enough to make their own moral choices, and where the state
sticks to looking after the citizens economic interests and needs and
delivering justice.
It is within these two main areas where the state can evoke rational and
modernistic interpretations of the Quran, especially those verses dealing withproperty rights, Zakat, justice and the rights of women.
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In the Middle East, Islamic Socialism evolved into becoming a more
nationalistic and revolutionary idea, mainly due to the creation of Israel (in
1948) and the expulsion of thousands of Palestinians from the area.
A Christian Syrian philosopher and Arab nationalist, Michel Aflaq, is
remembered to be the originator of the Middle Eastern strain of Islamic
Socialism that expressed itself as Arab Socialism and Baath Socialism.
Born into an Arab Christian family, Aflaq became a communist at college and
university, but broke away from the communists to formulate a radical and new
Arab nationalist philosophy with another young Syrian, Salah ad-Din al-Bitar.
After studying the steady economic and political decline of the Arab peoples
around the world, Aflaq and Bitar advocated the creation of a united Arab
state.
For this they recasted Arab nationalism by infusing into it a heavy dose of
socialist economic ideas, progressive cultural and social outlook, and by
reworking the idea of Islam inherent in it by evoking Qurans revolutionary
spirit to counter injustice and inequality but separating Islam (as an organised
faith) from the matters of the state.
Aflaq and Bitar claimed that this would lead to a renaissance in the Arab world,
turning it into an economic and political power.
Michel Aflaq.Their emphasis on the word renaissance (which in Arabic is Al-Baath), gave
birth to the term Baath Socialism, and soon both Aflaq and Bitar set out to
define exactly how this form of socialism works.
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Baath Socialism appealed to the unity of all Arab nations on the basis of
language/culture (Arab) and on the faith most Arabs followed (Islam).
It suggested that the Arab nations were being undermined by five forces:European colonialism (driven by capitalism); Soviet Communism; decadent
monarchies in Arab countries; Islamic conservatism within Arab societies; and
the clergy and the ulema who were keeping these societies in the clutches of
backwardness.
Baath Socialism offered a path between Western capitalism and Soviet
communism by suggesting that all Arab nations come together as one state
under a single vanguard party of Arab nationalists who would impose socialist
economic policies, modernise society through education, science and culture,
separate religion from the state but continue being inspired by the egalitarian
concepts of Islam that would remain to be the faith of a majority of citizens in
the united Arab state.
In spite of being staunchly secular, Baath Socialism celebrated Islam as proof
of Arab genius, and a testament of Arab culture, values and thought.
Song and Dance
The Middle East and A fr ica
Baath Socialism seemed to have arrived at a ripe moment in modern Arab
history because from 1940s onwards a number of anti-colonial movements in
Iraq, Egypt, Algeria, Yemen and Syria were all being lead by outfits declaring
themselves to be adherents of Arab Socialism.
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In 1948, a young military Colonel in Egypt, Gammal Abdel Nasser, formed the
clandestine Free Officers Movement.
The group consisted of Egyptian army officers driven by the ideas of ArabSocialism/Baath Socialism.
In 1952 the movement overthrew Egypts pro-British monarchy in a coup and
declared Egypt to be an independent Arab Socialist Republic.
Leading members of The Free Officers Movement soon after overthrowing the
Egyptian monarchy in 1952. Gammal Abdel Nasser is third from right (sitting).
Egyptian army tanks move in on the roads of Cairo during the 1952 Free Officers
coup.
Interestingly, the Free Officers Movement and coup were initially supported by
the anti-colonial right-wing religious group, the Muslim Brotherhood.
But once Nasser began unfolding his policies to modernise the Egyptian
economy and society, and claimed that Islam was best served when practiced
in private, the Muslim Brotherhood turned against his regime.
In 1954 it tried to assassinate Nasser who responded by unleashing a brutal
crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood and the conservative clergy.
Inspired by Nasser, a group of young officers in Iraq successfully overthrew
the Iraqi monarchy in 1958. Though the new regime at once declared Iraq to
be a republic, it did not form an Arab Socialist Party like Nasser.
That changed when in a counter coup (in 1963) another group of officers took
over and formed the Iraq Baath Socialist Party. But the situation remained
fluent and by 1966 the Baath Socialists were ousted in a coup only to return
and stabilise their power in 1968.
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Baath Socialism became Iraqs central ideology and the Baath Socialist Party
the countrys ruling outfit. This party and ideology in Iraq would last till 2003
until the fall of its last main man Saddam Hussein in 2003.
Members ofIraqs Baath Socialist Party holding a press conference after taking
over power in 1963.
Ever since its independence in 1949, Syria had been in turmoil and witnessed
a number of coups most of which were backed and planned by the Syrian
Baath Socialist Party.
In 1956, Syria also became one of the first Arab countries to enter the Soviet
camp as opposed to the American camp. Nassers Egypt soon followed
Syrias lead and signed various defense, economic and cultural pacts with the
Soviet Union.
To fully realise Arab/Baath Socialisms main doctrinal thrust of enacting a
united Arab nation, in 1958 Syria and Egypt merged to become the United
Arab Republic (UAR).
The experiment was a disaster as the Syrian side thought Nasser was
undermining Syrian interests. The union was dissolved when the Baath
Socialist Party in Syria engineered another coup in 1961.
Till 1970, Syrian politics was caught in a tense tussle between the radical and
moderate factions of the Baath Socialist Party until the party and government
were taken over by Hafizul Asad, an Army General.
Asad, an Alawite Muslim a breakaway Shia Muslim sect would go on to
stabilize Syria and rule as dictator till his death in 2000.
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Under him the Baath Socialist Party and regime became the most stable, as
well as radical in any Arab country.
Hafizul Asad talks to foreign media in Damascus after becoming Syrias new
head of state and leader of the countrys Baath Socialist Party in 1970.
A 1970 poster of the Young Socialist Alliance, an international group of leftist
student outfits allied to Baath/Arab Socialist parties and regimes in Egypt, Syria
and Iraq and the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO).
In Algeriaduring that countrys nationalist struggle against French colonialism
that began to peak in the 1950s, the movements main outfit the Organisation
Spciale(Special Organisation) began to be drawn towards the liberation
philosophy of Arab/Baath Socialism.
In 1954 The Special Organisation merged with various small left-wing
nationalist groups and guerilla organisations to form the National Liberation
Front (or the FLNFront de Libration Nationale) that became the largest
nationalist outfit during the Algerian liberation movement against French
colonialists.
Thousands of Algerians and French died between 1954 and 1962 in the war.
When the French finally agreed to leave Algeria in 1962, the FLN became the
first ruling party of independent Algeria.
Right away tensions emerged between FLNs radical leader, Ahmed Ben Bella
and the more moderate, Houari Boumedienne. In 1965 Boumedienne, with the
help of the newly formed Algerian army, toppled Ben Bella in a coup and
became Algerias second head of state.
He outlawed all other political parties, made FLN the sole ruling party of
Algeria, initiated a number of socialist economic polices, and cracked down on
Islamist and conservative religious groups.
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But unlike Arab Socialists in Iraq, Syria and Egypt, Boumedienne did not
aggressively push his country into the Soviet sphere of influence. He was,
however, equally vocal in his criticism of pro-US Arab monarchies, Israel,
Islamists and capitalism.
A female fighter of the FLN posing with her gun during the Algerian War of
Independence against the French.
Police surround the body of a French military officer assassinated by FLN
members in the Algerian city of Algiers in 1959.
Houari Boumedienne (right) in 1972. He ruled Algeria and headed the FLN from
1965 till 1978, putting Algeria on the socialist path.
During the height of a civil war (between Egypt-backed nationalists and Saudi-
supported monarchists) and anti-colonial movement (against the British
forces) in the northern part ofYemen, the two main outfits leading the
nationalist movement were the Yemeni National Liberation Front (NLF) and
the Front for the Liberation of Occupied South Yemen (FLOSY).
Both the political and guerilla groups were steeped in Arab Socialism and were
being led by Marxists.
When the fighting spilled into the South of the country it intensified, so much
so that the NLF and FLOSY began to attack each another in spite of the fact
that both were inspired by Nassers Arab Socialism and were being operated
by Marxists.
In 1967, NLF and FLOSY defeated the monarchists and drove out the British
from the south. NLF then went on to crush the FLOSY and declared the south
as an independent republic.
In 1970, NLF named South Yemen as the Peoples Democratic Republic of
Yemen and formed the countrys sole ruling party, the Yemeni Socialist Party.
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The party right away signed defense, cultural and economic pacts with
communist regimes in Soviet Union, China and Cuba.
North Yemen fell into the hands of forces being backed and funded by SaudiArabia and the US.
British soldiers pin National Liberation Front (NLF) sympathisers to the wall in
Aden, Yemen, 1967.
Three leading members of Yemens NLF: Salim Rubai Ali (who became
President of South Yemen), Abdul Fattah Ismail, and Ali al-Nasir Muhammad al-
Hasani.
In Libya another admirer of Arab Socialism and Nasser, Colonel Muammar
Qadhafi, replicated Egypts Free Officers Movement and overthrew the Libyan
monarchy in a coup in 1969.
In 1971, he formed the Arab Socialist Union (to be Libyas sole ruling party),
unleashed various radical socialist policies, and signed defense and economic
pacts with the Soviet Union.
Though vehemently opposed to pro-US Arab monarchies (especially Saudi
Arabia), and a close ally of the Soviet Union, Qadhafis Libya, unlike other
Arab Socialist regimes of the time, began tempering Libyas version of Islamic
Socialism by paralleling an anti-Islamist policy with certain puritanical
initiatives that saw the outlawing of the sale and consumption of alcohol,
closure of nightclubs and a crackdown on Marxists in universities and
colleges.
In 1976 he published a book (called the Green Book) in which he described
his understanding of Islamic Socialism. The book became a compulsory read
for school and college students.
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A young Libyan college student blushes after shaking hands with the then 29-
year-old Qadhafi in 1970. Also seen in the picture is Egyptian leader, Abdel
Nasser, who was on a visit to Libya.
Two opponents of the Qaddafi regime hanged in public in 1977.
After engulfing Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Libya, versions of Arab/Baath Socialism
made their way into other Muslim countries like Sudan and Somalia as well.
Sudan gained its independence from Britain in 1956. Between 1957 and 1969,
the country experienced a turbulent period of democratically elected right-wing
coalition governments and one military coup (1958).
In 1969, a military coup shaped on the dynamics of Nassers Free Officers
Movement took power.
The movement and coup were led by Gaafar Nimeiry, a self-professed Arab
Socialist and Nasser enthusiast.
On assuming power, Nimeiry announced his plan to base the countrys
society, politics and economics on independent Sudanese Socialism.
The Nimeiry regimes first cabinet included a number of communists who
helped him devise and implement a series of socialistic economic policies.
He also devised policies to restrict intervention and influence of conservative
Islamic elements in the workings of the mosques and educational institutions,
suggesting that Islam was best served when practiced in private.
Nimeiry struck strong relations with Arab Socialist regimes in Libya, Egypt,
Syria and Iraq and with the Soviet Union.
Perturbed by the Nimeiry regimes strong socialist and secular orientation,
various right-wing Islamist outfits merged to form the Ansar. After failing to
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In 1951, the National Front that was voted in as the leading party in the Iranian
parliament (Iran was a constitutional monarchy), managed to form a
government, nationalise Irans oil industry and eventually ousted the Shah of
Iran and declared the country to be a democratic republic.
A 1973 poster showing Said Barre rallying supporters of the Third World Socialist
movements.
However, in 1953, the Shah, with the help of British and American intelligence
agencies, the Iranian military and sections of Irans Islamic clergy, engineered
a coup and toppled the Mossadegh government.
After Mossadeghs fall, Islamic Socialism in Iran took a more radical turn. In
1965, a group of leftist students at the Tehran University formed the
Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MK).
Taking its inspiration from Iranian intellectual and author, Ali Shariati, MK
advocated an ideology that fused Islamic imagery with Marxist concepts.
Shariati was a sociologist who had studied in Paris and was jailed for his anti-
Shah lectures and writings when he returned to Iran in 1964.
Shariatis writings and talks became popular among university and college
students when he began to express revolutionary Marxist concepts with the
help of traditional Shia Muslim imagery and language, intensely attacking not
only the Iranian monarchy, but the Shia clergy and the communists as well.
Dr. Ali Shariati delivering a lecture in Tehran in 1972.
By 1971, the Shahs regime had begun to denounce him as an Islamic
Marxist and a Soviet agent. He was arrested and forced into exile in 1975
where he died of a heart attack (in 1977) aged just 43.
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The MK expressed Shariatis ideas in a violent manner and began an urban
armed guerilla campaign against the Shah.
The organisation also played an active role during the 1979 Iranian Revolutionthat toppled the Shah so much so that forces supporting Iranian Islamist
leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, relied heavily on the armed cadres of MK to
confront the Shahs soldiers and police.
But after the revolution when the Iranian Islamists and the clergy managed to
seize the government and impose strict Islamic laws, the MK began an urban
guerilla movement against the Islamic regime.
Denouncing the regime as being autocratic and reactionary, the MK fought the
regimes Islamic guards and the police. Hundreds died in the battles and
dozens of MK members were executed.
Logo of the Mujahidin-e-Khalq (MK) fusing Islamic and revolutionary Marxist
imageries.
MK activists take over a building at the Tehran University as a protest against the
Islamic regime in 1981.
East and South A sia
In Indonesia the groundwork for Islamic Socialism was undertaken by former
communist, Tan Malaka.
During the Indonesians movement for independence from Dutch colonialists
(mainly led by Kosno Sukarno), Malaka argued strongly that communism andIslam were compatible, and that, in Indonesia, revolution should be built upon
both.
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Tan Malaka also saw Islam as holding the potential for unifying the working
classes.
At the time of Malakas death in 1949 (the year Indonesia became anindependent country), its first head of state, Kosno Sukarno, adopted many of
Malakas ideas by granting patronage to Indonesias communist party (the
PKI) and Islamic Socialists inspired by Malaka.
Sukarno ruled Indonesia till 1967.
Former Indonesian communist turned Islamic Socialist, Tan Malaka. His ideas
influenced the countrys first ruler, Kosono Sukarno, who ruled between 1949and 1967.
Another Asian country where the idea and concept of Islamic Socialism
managed to seep into mainstream imagination was Pakistan.
As mentioned earlier, two of the earliest scholars who had theorised about this
concept (in South Asia) were Ghulam Ahmad Parvez and Dr. Khalifa Hakim.
There was also a string of Islamic Socialists in Pakistans founder, Muhammad
Ali JinnahsMuslim League that became Pakistans first ruling party after the
creation of the country in 1947.
However, this section in the party remained on the fringes.
In the early 1960s (during the secular and pro-US military dictatorship of Ayub
Khan), a group of intellectuals led by poet, painter and author, Hanif Ramay,
emerged in Lahore and began working on giving a more focused look to the
Islamic Socialist ideas of Parvez and Khalifa, and to also fuse in elements
from Baath Socialism in the context of a non-Arab Muslim country like
Pakistan.
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The project also included the publishing of a monthly Urdu literary magazine
called Nusrat that, apart from publishing Urdu poetry, short stories and
literary commentaries on the works of Urdu poets and writers, also ran pieces
on the works of Ghulam Ahmed Parvez, Dr. Khalifa and Michal Aflaq.
After the 1965 Pakistan-India war ended in a stalemate, Ayub Khan dismissed
his young Foreign Minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (for showing dissent).
Bhutto befriended a retired bureaucrat and veteran Marxist ideologue, J A.
Rahim, and both decided to form a populist left-wing party to challenge the
Ayub dictatorship.
In 1966, Bhutto also came into contact with Hanif Ramay who presented him
his groups work on Islamic Socialism.
Bhutto and Rahim formed the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) in 1967. A
number of Marxist and progressive intellectuals, journalists, student leaders
and trade unionists joined the party, but it was Ramays Islamic Socialist group
who prevailed when the time came to author the partys manifesto.
In a series of articles (by Ramay and Safdar Mir) in Nusrat, the writers
explained (the PPPs) Islamic Socialism as meaning:
Elimination of feudalism. Elimination of uncontrolled capitalism and the encouragement of a system
based on freedom of opportunity and/or an economic system closelymonitored by the government and the state.
Nationalisation of major banks, industries and schools. Encouraging the workers to participate in the running of factories. Promoting democracy and the building of democratic institutions.
All this was then explained to be a modern, 20th Century extension of the
principals of equality and justice as practiced by the first Muslim regime in
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Madina and Mecca headed by Islams Prophet, and of the many egalitarian
economic and social proclamations found in the Holy Quran.
PPPs Islamic Socialism denounced the conservative religious parties and the
clergy of being representatives of monopolist capitalists, feudal lords, militarydictators, the imperialist forces of capitalism, and of being agents of
backwardness and social and spiritual stagnation.
Poet, painter and author, Hanif Ramay, is claimed to be one of the main
ideologues and theorists of modern Islamic Socialism in Pakistan. He was also
one of the founding members of the PPP.
In spite of the fact that the right-wing Islamic party, the Jamat-i-Islami,
managed to get over a hundred different Islamic ulema and clergymen to
declare PPPs socialism to be atheistic and anti-Islam, the party managed to
sweep the 1970 elections in West Pakistan.
In 1972 (after East Pakistan broke away to become Bangladesh), the PPP
became Pakistans first popularly elected governing party.
Z A. Bhutto speaking at a leftist students rally in Karachi in 1969. He became the
first popularly elected Prime Minister in Pakistan and his party, the PPP, won amajority in former West Pakistan on a manifesto promising the imposition of
Islamic Socialism.
Afghanistan was the country where the last hurrah of Islamic Socialism
echoed.
In 1978, the communist Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) of Afghanistan
toppled the nationalistic dictatorship of Muhammad Daoud Khan with the help
of sympathetic officers in the Afghan military.
The event was named the Saur Revolution; or the Spring Revolution (Saur
in Dari means spring).
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The PDP was an outright Marxist outfit that began to rapidly unfold a number
of communistic social and economic policies.
But when the PDP regime began facing resistance and resentment from theAfghan clergy and landed elite in the countrys rural and semi-rural areas, its
ally, the Soviet Union, asked the PDP regime to slow down its Marxist reforms.
PDP quickly began to shed off its revolutionary Marxist excesses and replace
them with rhetoric being used at the time by Islamic Socialists and the Baath
Socialists.
For example, apart from constantly quoting Marx and Lenin, the PDP
government also began talking about the similarities between the economic
systems outlined by Marxism/Socialism and Islam.
Nevertheless, in December 1979, severe infighting in PDP saw the Soviet
troops walking into Afghanistan and propping up a more moderate regime led
by PDPs Babrak Karmal.
Flag of the Khalaq faction of the PDP.
Young women take out a rally in Kabul to welcome the 1978 Saur Revolution.
Decline and Demise
The outbreak of a range of movements, coups and revolutions associated with
various versions of Islamic Socialism in Asia, Africa and the Middle East not
only attracted grave concern from Arab monarchies and the US, the economic
maneuvers undertaken by regimes fusing socialism with certain aspects of
Islam largely failed to achieve the kind of economic equilibrium they had
promised.
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One of the first examples of the above was played out in Indonesia. On the
eve of Indonesias independence (from the Dutch) in 1949, Kusono Sukarno,
had become head of state.
He moved Indonesia towards what he called guided democracy that was
largely dominated by his own party, the Indonesian National Party (PNI), and
the Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI).
Sukarno and his PNI offered and ran Indonesia on an ideology based on a
threefold blend i.e. nationalism, Islamand communism.
But on his way to translate this ideology into the economic and social spheres
of the Indonesian society, he began to face stiff resistance from Islamic outfits
and from those segments of the military that wanted Indonesia to have closer
links with the US and the West.
From 1960 onwards, Indonesias economic situation began to worsen. In 1965
Sukarnos communist supporters (the PKI) became disillusioned by his slow
pace of reform.
The communists mobilised a pro-PKI faction in the military and attempted a
coup against Sukarno.
The coup was crushed by the pro-West faction of the military and followed by
a brutal crackdown against the communists and their sympathisers.
In the ensuing violence, over 50,000 people were slaughtered, mainly by the
military and the Islamic outfits that it used to purge the left.
In 1967 Major General Suharto disposed Sukarno and took over the reigns of
power.
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Though PKI was outlawed, and Suhartho navigated Indonesia towards the US
camp, he eventually came down hard on the Islamic outfits as well that had
been mobilised by the military to crush the communist uprising.
A communist student at the Jakarta University being roughed up by soldiers and
Islamic student activists during the militarys purge against leftists in Indonesia in
1965.
Major General Suharto (in fatigues) with members of the Indonesian militarys
anti-communist faction. Suhartho toppled Sukarno and went on to rule Indonesia
till the early 1990s until he was himself overthrown by a popular democratic
movement.
The second major setback that Islamic Socialism experienced was in Egypt.
Nasser had ruled supreme as a popular head of state since 1952s Free
Officers Coup and had rung in a number of sweeping socialist reforms.
His regime also became an inspiration and backer of various Arab Socialist
movements in the Middle East, offering a socialist and secular Muslim
alternative to Arab peoples under pro-US but puritanical Arab monarchies.
However, Nasser lost much of his influence and clout when the Egyptian
armed forces were routed by the Israeli army and air force in 1967.
Millions of Egyptians gathered to mourn Nassers death in 1970.
But Nassers regime remained largely popular till his death from a heart attack
in 1970.
His successor (and former comrade), Anwar Sadat, became the head of
Egypts Arab Socialist Union and the countrys new head of state.
Sadat continued Nassers socialist policies and also kept up Egypts financial
and moral support for radical Arab Socialist regimes and movements and the
PLO.
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However, though the 1973 Egypt-Israel War ended in a stalemate, the
countrys economy was found reeling from the wars impact.
Saudi Arabia offered to bail out Egypts economy by offering millions of dollarsworth of aid and oil.
By accepting Saudi help, Sadat officially restored relations with the Saudi
monarchy that had been severed by Nasser.
The Saudi monarchy then asked Sadat to rehabilitate thousands of members
of the right-wing Muslim Brotherhood who had been jailed by Nasser or sent
into exile (mostly to Saudi Arabia).
Sadat lifted the ban on the activities of the Muslim Brotherhood.
In 1974, Sadat eventually decided to pull Egypt out of the Soviet camp and
ordered Soviet military advisors, technicians and citizens who had been
stationed in Egypt to leave the country.
In 1976, Sadat finally announced the end of Egypts socialist experiment and
in 1977 changed the name of Egypts ruling party from Arab Socialist Union to
National Democratic Party.
He ousted the last remnants of Arab Socialism from the party and ordered a
crackdown on students and members of the intelligentsia who opposed his
move.
Though Egypt remained largely secular, and Sadat managed to gain the
support of the Muslim Brotherhood (whom he used to purge leftist students
and members of the intelligentsia), he ended up offending the Brotherhood as
well when he decided to enact ties with archenemy, Israel.
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Sadat was assassinated in 1981 for this by a militant faction of the
Brotherhood. But his successor, Hosni Mubarak, continued his policies for the
next three decades until he was toppled in 2011 in a widespread democratic
revolution (the Arab Spring).
Sadat (centre) with his family in Cairo -AP Photo
Taking Sadats lead was Pakistans ruling Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP)
headed by Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.
The Bhutto regime had been elected (in 1970) on the appeal of the PPPs
socialist platform and chants of Islamic Socialism.
Overtaken by the economic crises that hit the world after the 1973 Egypt-Israel
War, the Bhutto regime toned down its socialist reforms and rhetoric and
entered into a number of agreements and pacts with oil-rich gulf monarchies.
Bhutto began by purging the radical left factions within the PPP and then
dished out a number of constitutional concessions to right-wing Islamic parties
that were close to Saudi Arabia.
He believed that this way he would be able to appease and neutralise these
parties.
Z A. Bhutto (right) hosting a dinner for Saudi king, Faisal, in Karachi (1975). On
the Kings advice, Bhutto toned down his socialist rhetoric and smoothend his
relations with Pakistans Islamic parties.
Just before the 1977 election, the words socialism and Islamic Socialism wereonly minimally used in the PPPs new manifesto.
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However, Bhuttos new-found closeness to Middle Eastern monarchies, his
purges against the left and his concessions to the Islamic parties failed to stem
the emergence of a right-wing movement against his regime in 1977.
He was eventually toppled in a reactionary military coup led by General Ziaul
Haq and then hanged in 1979 through a sham trial.
Men pray and women wail just outside the jail where Z A. Bhutto was hanged in
April 1979. The picture was taken in May 1979.
Algeria traded the socialist path till 1978 or till the death of Houari
Boumdienne who had ruled the country since 1965.
Colonel Chadli Bendjedid became the head of the ruling FLN party and then
the new head of state.
In the early 1980s, Bendjedid began to slowly reverse Boumediennes socialist
reforms and started negotiations with FLNs Islamic opponents who had been
opposed to FLNs Arab Socialism and secularism.
Though Bendjedid managed to rule Algeria till 1991, his economic reforms that
saw Algeria opening up its economy could not curtail the countrys
deteriorating economy and the resultant unrest largely led by Algerias newly
emboldened Islamic parties.
In 1987, Bendjedid almost completely folded FLNs socialist agenda and
ideology and began to warm up to the US, the West and the gulf monarchies.
Wreckage of a government bus that was torched by protesters during the anti-
government riots in Algeria in 1988. The riots confirmed the collapse of Algerian
socialism.
In 1991, the government decided to hold Algerias first multi-party election.
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However, when municipal elections were won by a group of radical Islamist
parties, the military intervened and postponed the general election.
The military blamed Bendjedid for unwittingly strengthening the Islamists andputting the countrys secular foundations in danger. He was ousted in 1991.
Between 1992 and 2002, Algeria witnessed an intense war between Islamists
and the military in which thousands of Algerians were killed.
Brutalities took place on both sides. The military killed hundreds of Islamists
and their sympathisers, whereas the Islamists slaughtered numerous civilians
through suicide attacks, assassinations and beheadings.
The Islamist insurgency was brought under control and subdued (if not entirely
crushed) by the military in 2002.
Algerias Islamist guerilla fighters holding a meeting in 1996. Groups of militant
Islamists went to war with the Algerian military between 1992 and 2002.
Thousands of Algerians were killed in the conflict until the Algerian military finally
managed to subdue the militants.
One of the Muslim countries where socialism did rather well as an economic
and social initiative was Somalia.
The socialist regime there (that came to power in 1969), managed to
guarantee a relatively stable economy and dramatically raised the rate of
literacy.
In 1977, Somalia entered into a territorial conflict with Ethiopia, putting its main
economic and political ally the Soviet Union in a quagmire.
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This was because at the time the regime in Ethiopia too was in the Soviet
camp. After failing to deescalate the conflict between Somalia and Ethiopia,
the Soviets decided to side with the Ethiopians.
Offended by the move, the Somalian president, Siad Barre, broke off ties with
the Soviet Union and accepted American military and economic help.
In 1980, he disbanded the Somalian Revolutionary Socialist Party and
reversed his socialist reforms, also loosening the curbs his government had
imposed on the activities of liberal democratic parties as well as on Islamic
groups.
With American aid, Barre was also able to build one of the biggest armies in
Africa.
In the mid-1980s, the Barre regime began to face unrest and charges of
corruption and totalitarianism.
In 1986, Barree got injured in a car accident and on his return could not stop
Somalias slide into anarchy.
In 1991, his regime collapsed and Somalia erupted into a crippling civil war
between various political and tribal factions.
Today Somalia remains to be in total anarchy.
Women members of Somalias paramilitary units march out to battle the
Ethiopian army in 1977.
Residents of Somlian capital, Mogadishu, ride a truck out of the city to escape
the civil war that erupted in Somalia after the collapse of the Siad Barres regime
(1991).
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The Soviet Unions support to Ethiopia in 1977 also offended Sudan that too
had a territorial grudge with Ethiopia.
The socialist Gaafar Nimeiry regime cut off ties with the Soviet Union andmoved towards the Soviets communist rival, China.
Detecting a wobble in the government, and with the countrys economy under
duress, the militant Islamist group, the Ansar that had been routed by Nimeiry
in 1971 returned to trigger another armed insurgency.
Ansar tried to mobilise some anti-Nimeiry factions in the military to mount a
coup but failed.
However, this time Nimeiry agreed to hold negotiations with the Ansar who
demanded that he reverse his socialist policies, denounce Islamic Socialism
as an atheistic concoction and replace secular rule with an Islamic one.
Nimeiry released hundreds of Ansar members, moved Sudan closer to the US
and in 1981 announced a series of Islamic laws.
He was finally ousted in a military coup in 1985 that was backed by Islamic
parties and other anti-Nimeiry outfits.
Famous Sudanese Islamist ideologue, Hasan al-Turabi. Turabi opposed the
Nimeiry regime across the 1970s, but became part of the regime when Nimeiry
broke off ties with the Soviet Union and imposed a number of Islamic laws in
Sudan that were devised by Turabi.
In 1989, when the Soviet Union was bordering on the brink of disintegration
and communism was in retreat, the socialist regime in South Yemen dissolved
itself and joined with North Yemen to remake Yemen into a single country.
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In Afghanistan, the PDP regime fell in the hands of US/Saudi/Pakistan-backed
and funded Islamic forces in 1989.
The Baath Socialist regime in Iraq and Qadhafis Islamic Socialist governmentin Libya began to roll back their socialist polices from the 1990s onwards.
Both fell in the 2000s.
Protesters tie ropes around Saddam Husseins statue in Baghdad to pull it down,
2003.
Islamic/Baath/Arab Socialism:
Achievements
- Ideologically mobilised nationalist movements in Muslim countries caught
between European colonialism, monarchial decadence and conservative
ulema. - Offered a third way between Western/American capitalism and
Soviet communism. - Wrestled the initiative to interpret the socio-political
aspects of Islam from the clergy and conservative ulema and radical Islamists.
- Tried to construct an Islamic version (and justification) for secularism. - Co-
opted various Marxist, socialist and progressive strands and entities operating
in Muslim countries and got them all on a single platform. - Adopted modern
social, political and cultural concepts in Muslim societies but discarded these
concepts colonial/western legacies. - Revived the idea of Ijtihad
(independent discussion on Islamic law and faith) that had been repressed in
Muslim lands for centuries. - Highlighted Islam as a progressive, dynamic and
rational faith. - Eschewed differences in Muslim societies on the basis of clans,
sects and tribes. - Showed creativity in designing economic and cultural
policies and then expressed them with the help of progressive interpretations
of Islamic texts and imagery. - Added newer, more progressive dimensions to
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commentaries and the study of Islam and its place in society and politics. -
Encouraged the participation of women in the Muslim world to take a direct
part in economic, cultural and political aspects of life. - Emphasised the
importance of having high literacy rates. - Gave a political identity to middle-
class youth and a sense of economic and ideological participation to the
working classes.
Failures
- Remained autocratic and undemocratic in nature. - Relied heavily on the
military. - Undermined the peoples political sense and rights. - Was intolerant
towards opposing political and economic ideas. - Was too militaristic and yet
failed over and over again in wars against foreign enemies. - Regularly
intervened in matters of other countries. - Its economic maneuvers remained
largely half-baked and carelessly managed. - Though rejected American
hegemony and political influence in the name of independent economic and
political existence, it banked on Soviet expertise, aid and patronage. - Violently
repressed Islamists and Islamic outfits but then turned supportively towards
them when deciding to purge opposing leftists. - Unwittingly recharged Islamist
and radical Islamic forces that eventually emerged to offer the Islamic option
with the collapse of Islamic Socialism.
Research papers and essays used:
-Islamic Socialism: NA Jawad - The Muslim World (1975) -The Sources &
Meaning of Islamic Socialism: F. Rahman Religion & Political Modernization
(1974) -Islamic Economics & Islamic Subeconomy: T. Kuren JSTOR (1995) -
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The Baath Party:Rise & Metamorphosis: JA Devlin- JSTOR (1985) -Withered
socialism or whether socialism? The radical Arab states as
populist?corporatist regimes: NN Ayubi - Third -World Quarterly (1992) -
Critical analysis of capitalism, socialism and Islamic economic order: M. Ismail
(1982) -Arab Socialism: A documentary Survey: SA Hanna (1969)
Nadeem F. Paracha is a cultural critic and senior columnist for Dawn Newspaper
and Dawn.com